Aerobic exercise is a popular form of exercise that improves one's cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure and providing other benefits to the human body. Aerobic exercise generally involves low intensity physical exertion over a long duration of time. Typically, the human body can adequately supply enough oxygen to meet the body's demands at the intensity levels involved with aerobic exercise. Popular forms of aerobic exercise include running, jogging, swimming, and cycling, among others activities. In contrast, anaerobic exercise typically involves high intensity exercises over a short duration of time. Popular forms of anaerobic exercise include strength training and short distance running.
Many choose to perform aerobic exercises indoors, such as in a gym or their home. Often, a user will use an aerobic exercise machine to perform an aerobic workout indoors. One type of aerobic exercise machine is a treadmill, which is a machine that has a running deck attached to a support frame. The running deck can support the weight of a person using the machine. The running deck incorporates a conveyor belt that is driven by a motor. A user can run or walk in place on the conveyor belt by running or walking at the conveyor belt's speed. The speed and other operations of the treadmill are generally controlled through a control module that is also attached to the support frame and within a convenient reach of the user. The control module can include a display, buttons for increasing or decreasing a speed of the conveyor belt, controls for adjusting a tilt angle of the running deck, or other controls. Other popular exercise machines that allow a user to perform aerobic exercises indoors include ellipticals, rowing machines, stepper machines, and stationary bikes to name a few.
One type of treadmill is disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0220427 issued to Darren C. Ashby, et al. In this reference, an exercise system includes one or more exercise devices that communicate via a network with a communication system. The communication system stores and/or generates exercise programming for use on the exercise device. The exercise programming is able to control one or more operating parameters of the exercise device to simulate terrain found at a remote, real world location. The exercise programming can include images/videos of the remote, real world location. The control signals and the images/videos can be synchronized so that a user of the exercise device is able to experience, via the changing operating parameters, the topographical characteristics of the remote, real world location as well as see images of the location. Another type of treadmill is described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0209393 issued to Bradley A. Crater, et al.